Flirting With Danger (29 page)

“Rick, you’ve gone mad.” Harry’s face darkened. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but you have no right to break into my house and threaten me! I—”

“Rick!”

At Samantha’s yell he turned and sprinted down the hallway. “Samantha?”

“In here. You’ve got to see this.”

He found her in Harry’s office. The desk drawers all hung open, and from the appearance of the bent letter opener in her hand she hadn’t been too careful with the woodwork. She held up a photo. “Gotcha,” she said with a grim smile.

The tablet. It looked to be a duplicate of one of the insurance photos. For a brief moment, he wanted to catch her up in his arms and shout. They’d been right. And that meant Harry would know who Mr. Big—Dr. Evil—was.

Meridien loped into his office, his face red and glistening with sweat. “Get the hell out of my house, Rick. You and whoever she is. Now.”

“I have a better idea,” Richard snarled. “Why don’t you have a seat and tell me a story?” Grabbing the photo, he waved it at Harry. “A very good story. With names and everything.”

“You—she—could have put that there. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe not to the police, but it does to me. Now sit down, Harry, or I’ll take you down.”

For a moment the big man blustered, complaining about not being able to trust anyone. Then he sank into the plush chair beside the door. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“There’s a chance I might not press charges if you tell me who else is involved in this.” Richard sat on the edge of the desk. “And I might loan you enough money to keep your bank liquid. Maybe.”

“The bank?” An almost pitiful hope widened his eyes and made his heavy chin quiver. “This…Partino only said he had something coming on the market, and would I be interested in having a crack at it. That’s all.”

“Danté called you. Directly,” Richard pursued, holding back his own anger. Answers first. This didn’t concern just
him. Samantha still stood behind the desk, going through files as if she was completely alone in the room.

“Yes. And now I’m going to call my attorney, and the police.”

“Who else besides Partino offered you the tablet?” Samantha cut in, not looking up.

“Who are you?” Harry demanded.

“I’m the one who was supposed to be the scapegoat when the other guy who contacted you sent someone in to steal Addison’s property and kill Partino.”

The big man’s face grayed around the edges. “What?”

“That’s right,” Richard seconded, adopting Samantha’s blunt vernacular. Hell, it worked amazingly well for her. “Didn’t you know? Or were you stupid enough to let them set you up to take the blame for everything? The guy who stole the tablet is dead, the guy who hired my friend here to break in at the same time is dead, and this afternoon someone tried to shove my car into the Thames with me in it.” He leaned forward. “So as you can probably guess, I’m not amused. I want names.”

“He’s got the Remington, too, it looks like,” Samantha said, still flipping through files. “Maybe more.” She glanced up, her gaze on Harry. “I’m starting to think that maybe he’s the guy. The one who arranged everything.”

“I am a collector,” Harry said, the ruddy color of his skin darkening to the point that Richard began to wonder whether he had a history of heart problems. “I had nothing to do with anyone getting hurt.”

“Prove it! Who’s the other guy? Tell me now, dammit!”

Harry’s round face furrowed. “Oh, for God’s sake, Rick, haven’t you figured it out by now?”

That stopped him for a minute. Something he should have realized already, or someone he should have suspected already, but didn’t. “Pretend I’m slow and tell me, Harry. I’ll give you to the count of three, then I’m going after the cricket bat. No more games. I want a bloody name!”

“Christ,” Meridien mumbled, sweat beginning to pour down his face.

“How about my name?” A tall, light-haired man stepped into the room, the cricket bat in one hand and a pistol in the other.

Tuesday, 7:08 p.m.
London Time

Rick looked at him for a long moment. “You. It was you all along.”

“Well, a chap’s got to make a living, you know. And you provide quite a good one.” The pistol stayed aimed at Rick, but the bat wavered in Sam’s direction. “You must be Sam Jellicoe. Sean O’Hannon obviously thought less of you than he should have.”

Meridien lurched to his feet. “Peter, I—”

The cricket bat smashed across Meridien’s face, sending him into a crumpled heap on the floor. Sam held her breath until she heard the big man moaning. He wasn’t dead, thank God. She returned her attention to the good-looking blond man. “Peter,” she repeated aloud. “Peter Wallis.”

“You
are
clever. Good. I’d hate to think it was just dumb luck keeping you ahead of me. Why don’t you come over here and let me get a look at Rick’s whore?”

“Don’t move, Samantha,” Rick ordered, shifting a little so he was between Wallis and her.

“‘Don’t move, Samantha,’” Wallis mimicked. “After Patricia called you, and you didn’t ask her anything special about me, I figured you’d head here to see Harry, you smug bastard.”

“So now what?” Rick asked, his voice black and hard.

“Well, now I have to kill you and make it look like you and Harry did one another in.”

“It doesn’t do you any good,” Sam broke in. The man standing before her had killed Etienne and O’Hannon. And he’d meant for Partino to be dead, and hadn’t cared if the bomb took out anyone else. She couldn’t think of a thing that would stop him from shooting Rick—except his own greed.

“And why is that, Miss Jellicoe?”

“All the forgeries from Palm Beach are with the FBI. Everything you took is hot, and your buffet is closed. Partino’s in jail, and nothing more is coming in for you.”

“Partino’s a greedy little piss ant. I don’t need him.”

“He tried to go around you and undersell the tablet to Harry, didn’t he?” Sam pursued.

“Very good,” he answered. Meridien moved again, and Wallis beat him across the skull. “Down, boy.”

“So what did O’Hannon and Etienne do to you?”

“Well, DeVore got angry because apparently you and he were friends, and he didn’t know you’d been the one hired to go in at the same time. That was O’Hannon’s fault. I just told him to send some ape to stumble in and take the blame. Instead, he sent you, clever girl, and then he panicked.”

“You’re pretty new to this theft thing, Wallis,” she said, slipping her fingers around the bent letter opener, “just stealing from one guy and all, so I’ll let you in on a secret. We thieves have quite the community. O’Hannon was a disgusting jerk, but everybody knew that. You either worked with him, or you didn’t. No murders allowed. Same with Etienne. You’ve killed two of us. Everybody’s gonna know. And somebody will talk, especially if someone’s broken the code.
If there’s reward money involved, we’ll be standing in line to sell you out.”

“Good God, I’m positively shivering. Rick, shut her up, or I will.”

“Samantha,” Rick said quietly.

Wallis tipped the cricket bat down to lean on it. “You know, now that I think about it, this really is the only step left. I’ve been stealing your oh-so-prestigious artworks for years, and you’ve been showing off fakes to governors and senators and heads of state.”

“There is counseling available for your particular mental disorder,” Rick put in. “Though I can’t figure out if you have a Napoleon complex or if you’re just sorry and jealous.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Wallis retorted. “I’m not finished. I stole your wife—which really didn’t take much effort on my part—replaced your artwork with fakes and you didn’t even know the difference, and now poof, I kill you. The end. I win.” He chuckled, confident now. “I almost had you last week. I thought, why not? He’s back in Florida early, may as well make the effort. I timed it to the minute, but your thief here moved too fast, or Danté was too slow.”

“What are you—”

“Does this sound familiar? Ring, ring.”

Sam saw the muscles across Rick’s shoulders tighten. “The fax machine. You’re the one who woke me up that night.”

“Good boy. Nearly had you. Very nearly.”

“But you didn’t.”

With a sigh, Wallis shook his head. “After your bloody divorce the newspapers all said how generous you were in letting your adulterous wife and her lover have your house in London. They didn’t mention how you nearly bankrupted me with your little fun in New York, or that you stripped your lovely mansion bare and painted every wall red and threw dirty mattresses all over the floor.”

“You did that?” Sam asked, forcing a chuckle. “I get it; you made your bed, now lie in it.”

“I thought it was quite poetic,” Rick commented.

“Nice.”

Wallis shook the gun. “You thought it gave you the last word, didn’t you? You were wrong. I win. Game, set, match. Now, any more questions, or shall we just get on with it? And how generous are you going to be tonight, Rick? Shall I do you first, or her?”

“Me,” Rick said promptly.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” He straightened his arm. From that range, he wasn’t going to miss.

“By the way,” Sam cut in again, desperation making her voice tight, “you did realize that the Meridien’s got a video surveillance system, didn’t you? You’ve been on candid camera since you walked in here.” She slid her eyes up toward the far corner behind him and back again.

Wallis hesitated for a moment, and it was all she needed. Sweeping around Rick, Sam hurled the letter opener. Bent, its trajectory was off, but it sliced into Wallis’s chest, making him flinch.

The gun went off, the roar tremendous in the small room. Samantha screamed Rick’s name, but he was already moving. Hurtling off the desk, he plowed into Wallis, knocking them both over a chair and to the floor. The gun flew out of Wallis’s hand, but he brought the bat around, slamming Rick across the back.

Snarling, Wallis scrambled after the gun, Rick twisting to grab his leg and slow him down. The pistol had slid under a credenza, and Sam went down after it. Wallis grabbed at her, and she elbowed him hard in the face.

“Sam, get back!” Rick bellowed, managing to climb to his knees and land a hard punch against Wallis’s kidneys.

Wallis twisted like a snake, sending the cricket bat across Rick’s face. Blood spurted from his lip and nose, and he stumbled backward. His attacker climbed over him, raising the bat again.

Sam jumped on his back. “No!” she shrieked, one hand on the bat and the other wrapped around Wallis’s neck. She
hauled back as hard as she could, and he overbalanced, going down hard with her beneath him.

The air drove out of her lungs at the impact. Gasping for breath, she tightened her grip around his neck. An elbow slammed her in the rib cage with enough force to make her eyes roll back. Her grip loosened, and he was on all fours over her, grabbing her hair and slamming her head into the floor.

Pain screamed through her head, thrumming and roaring and making sounds hollow and far away. She tried to kick, but he knelt across her legs. He’d caught her right hand and held it pinned over her head while he beat her to death, but her left was free. Through vision that blackened at the edges she reached for the cricket bat.

It slipped away from her, and then his weight lifted off. As she lost focus she caught a glimpse of Rick holding the bat like a pro, swinging it up and across Wallis’s head, and then the sound of a body hitting the floor. Then everything went black.

Rick dropped the bat. Sinking to the floor, he crawled to where Samantha lay, her eyes closed and her face gray. “Samantha?” he whispered, swiping blood from his mouth. He touched her face, but she didn’t move at all. “Sam?”

God, he’d killed her. When he’d stumbled upright to see Wallis slamming her head over and over into the floorboards, time had just …stopped. Nothing was worth this: not pride, not money, not his own life.

Shaking, he slipped a finger over her neck. A faint pulse beat against his hand, and he took in a sob of air. “Samantha? Sweetheart? Open your eyes, Sam.”

Her lashes fluttered, and moss green eyes blinked groggily up at him. “Ouch,” she slurred.

“Just lay still, sweetheart. Can you feel your legs, your arms?”

“Your face is bloody.”

“I know. Move your toes and your fingers. Now, Saman
tha.” A few seconds ticked by without his heart beating, then her fingers moved, first the right hand and then the left. “Good girl.”

Harry’s phone lay on the floor beeping at him from behind the desk, and Rick leaned sideways to grab it. Swiftly he called for an ambulance and the police, then returned his attention to Samantha. Her eyes had closed again.

“Samantha?”

“Go away. I have a concussion.”

With a slight smile, he brushed hair from her face. Wallis had yanked out a handful of it, and she was definitely going to need a trip to the hairdresser’s. “You can’t run away now, can you?” he murmured.

“I have no legs.”

“They’re right here, I promise. Attached and everything. And they look very nice.”

“Shut up.”

“I love you, Samantha Jellicoe.”

Her eyes opened again, gamely focusing on his face. He didn’t expect her to answer; she’d spent too much time being alone, too long being able to depend on no one but herself. But she smiled, reaching an unsteady hand up to touch his face. He clasped it in his as her eyes rolled back, and she blacked out again.

When Sam opened her eyes, she half thought she was still in the middle of some sort of nightmare. Uniformed officers and men and women in those tan British trench coats swarmed around her, talking in a low buzz of London accents. She was off the floor, she realized, on a gurney with a needle in one arm. They’d strapped her down.

“Hey!” she grunted, fighting to sit up.

Rick appeared over her shoulder, a cold pack held to his mouth and a butterfly bandage across the bridge of his nose. “It’s okay,” he said, lowering the ice pack. “Just relax.”

“You have a black eye,” she noted. He also had a swelled lip, and a dark, scraped bruise forming on his left cheek.

“Your powers of observation remain intact,” he said, smiling in a lopsided wince.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

“Too bad.”

The stretcher bumped and lifted, and then she was rolling toward the doorway. “Rick?” she said, abruptly panicking now that she couldn’t see him.

“I’m here. I’m going with you. I have a broken nose.”

“I win, because I have a broken head.”

She heard his low, soft chuckle. “Your head’s too hard to break,” he returned. It’s just dented.”

“That’s good.”

“Not really, sweetheart.”

She was lifted off the ground, then was inside the ambulance. A technician, then Rick climbed in after her, sitting to one side. “What about Harry and Wallis?” she asked.

Rick leaned forward to take her hand. “Harry’s in another ambulance. Wallis is going to wish he was dead by the time I’m through with him.”

She looked at him for a minute. “I don’t think Patricia knew anything about this,” she offered.

“The police are bringing her in for questioning,” he returned, flexing his fingers in hers, “but I don’t think she knew, either. I hope not.”

“Me, too.”

“I have to tell you something,” he said, the smile touching his face again.

He’d already told her something; something very precious and very private, something she would keep inside her heart forever. But she didn’t want him to have to say it again without her answer. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” she said quickly. “I know, and it’s …I’m…”

His smile deepened into his eyes. “Not that. Castillo called Scotland Yard, told them he recommended they bring one Harold Meridien in for questioning regarding a series of art thefts. They charged through the door about thirty seconds after I called for the police.”

“Frank was listening through the glass at the jail. I knew someone was there.”

Nodding, Rick squeezed her hand. “I think I owe Frank a beer.”

“I kind of like him,” she agreed, surprised that she could admit to it. “He’s okay, for a cop.”

The technician leaned over, checking the oxygen line set into her nose and something that was monitoring her heart rate. “You need to rest, miss,” he said. “No more talking.”

“Okay. One more thing, though.” She lifted Rick’s hand as far as she could with her arm under the strap. “I want to go to Devon.”